FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL
Gi l mer Yamboree
INTERVI EW WI TH:Dr. Dick Potter , Professor Spot Baird
PLACE: Oral History Office , ITC
DATE :Augus t 7 , 1982
INTERVIE,'lER : Esther MacMillan
M:ARe you re a lly a doctor? They call you Dr. Potter?
B: He ' s a doctor of pottery. That ' s his profession.
P :I'm a ceramic engineer and ·founder of the Gilmer POtteries.
Unive rsity of Texas graduate , ceramic engineer.
M: You 're kind~\n ceramics because you ' ve got brick.LAcme]
All right , what you are is Spot , Professor of Possumology
and Dr . Dick POtter is Director of research and Tas t e De-
Flector .
~his is a booth in the Folklife Festival that~Qp always
got people around it a nd is one of the most successful
booths we have in the Festival . These are two gentlemen who
just go a ll out to entertain and are two very wonderful
peop le]
Last year when we did the interview)which didn ' t work , we
started out by telling , how Gilmer got over here in the
first place. The first year of Fo l klife ."
B: Let me start and then Dr . Po tter can add to it because
he knows so much about it, too.
This actually started , our little possumology , or t he
possum part of it,Gilmer , since 1936, has been holding the
East Texas Yamboree . It was a Festival honoring our East
Texas sweet potato, which at that time was a very marketable
crop . And many , many acres throughout the county were de -
voted to it. We had the Festival and t hen we had a yam pie
contest. So Mr. O.T. Baker a t the first one said it's a
native pie , it ' s a native here, would you come down and
Yambor ee 2 .
B: cook the pies and s how ' em how to make ' em and how to cook
the yam p i es and serveyam pies. And it ' s a very de l ic i ous pie .
So Dr . POt ter a nd I t h ough~ ' we l l , possums and yams go
t ogether s o w~l l take one down and we' ll tel) wh i le they ' re
wat c h i ng t he pie being cooked , we 'll t e ll them about possum-
I o l ogy . And we j ust added to i t each year . And l e t DR . POtter
te ll you about the yamboree , t oo , because he ' s been a past
president of our East Texas Yamboree .
P : As has Prof essor BAi rd.
M: Were you he r e the fi r st year?
B: Yes. We have been here since the very first.
M: Were you dressing up i n t hose terrib l e clothes (laughterlf
B:This is our origina l cos t ume . The Festi val brought us out ;
it sure d i d.
M: All this talent l ying l atent al l these years .
B: All these years .
P : Ye~we were here from the first. And the Yamboree d i d
have a par t in sponsoring us in the early years . The Yamboree
took it upon t hemselves to say ," Yeah , we 'l l send a de l egati on
down there ; we ' ll send a bunch of pies and we 'l l see how it
~ goes and feel it out . We have a l ways managed to dispose of
anywhere from 900 to 1 , 000 p i es down here. The Fes t iva l has
been very n i ce t o t he professor and myself. I n t he latter
~~y
years have const ituted us as entertainer s .
~
M: The first year you came down with the pies , were you
cutti ng up like this?
P : Very much so. Ori gina l ly we did a one on one deal. We just
simp l y answered questions with hal f truths~nd t he act
3.
Yamboree
P: developed, I suspect , from just all these various
answers that came off the top of our heads as we talked to
people.
M:I n other words, it's grown like Topsy.
C-/
P: It has.
B: And we've me t so many wonderful people. In fact, just this
year, Dr. Potter and I brought down and gave an award to two
of the sweetest l adi es. And so help me, they have been here
every year. Doctor, what were their names?
P: Ruth Finnenger and Helen Engel. They are from Dickinson!
Texas and the/brought the editor of their paper along this year
and we gave them a diploma of the Bachelor of Science in
Possumology. We only award that with the go ld seal and the
actual shoe string to certain special people.
B: The shoestring denotes .. we started this thing on a
shoe string 11 years ago and we're still on it. (laughter)
But we're making progress.
M: It is so much fun. Gilmer is in Upshur County in East
Texas.A little later I want to talk .about the history of
Gilmer.
The notes I made a fter the failure of last year's inter­view[
The two men dress up in flowered shirts, overalls,
crazy hats and entertain the crowd. The possum skull in
the flower pot. " What's that mean?
P: It's an Indian trick that the Professor 's ancestors found
by trading garden vegetables to the Cherokee Indians. He'd
best explain.
B: It's a trace, actually. We call it the Cherokee Trace,
a little path that winds through Upshur County and
4.
Yamboree
B:the Cherokee roses , the r e is a little rose ca lled Cherokee
rose, and from season to season in t he early years the INd ians
would make a trail a nd as they wou l d break camp after the
winter e tc. , they wou l d plant these little roses. And then
l ater on , the o t her I ndians coming along could fol low the roses
aa they were blooming and they would know where t he other
I ndians had made the path. So they come through East Texas
and they were a fr i end l y group of I Ndians . The first settlers
in their log cabins , gardens , and their small ways of trying to
help , food a nd a ll, the Ind i ans would come i n and trade maybe
hides and diffe r ent things for vege t ables and garden things
so they could cook and move on down .
And this was a trick they would do : They wou l d t ake two
pots .. and I believe Mr. Sam ASkins also said it was really a
little possum skull .. and they ' d put it under these two clay
pots and then they had a magic h i de and they wou l d cover it
with and then they would use t he wo r ds , "Possum, Ossum" and
just as t hey would say t he magic words, they'd lif t up the
'-'
hide and never lift up t he two pots. And they would say that
the skull had trave l ed from pot number 1 t o pot number 2.
And then t hey wou l d r evers e the hide and would say the words
"Ossum,Possum" and just the n the skull traveled from under
pot 2 to pot 1. And it was always amazing to the grand-parents
and the people t hat saw it and they never could
figure out how the I Ndi ans were able to do it. And they
passed it on to u s and we ' ve been able to do it.
P : Quite s uccessfu ll y .
M: I saw you do it.
Yamboree 5.
P : Just every time.
B: It's just unbelievable! (laughter)
B: It ' s so nice to see ' em i n anticipation. They say , "It really
happens but when is he going to lift the pot up? "
M: Anothe r t hing I made a note of .. I don 't remember what this
means: "Indian horse blanket."
P: That ' s the saddle blanket that he uses as a cover for the
pots .
B: We don 't have t he hide like they had ; we use the Indian
saddle blanket. And it's a tow sack. Dr . Potter had it in his
garage there at home . I guess it's a keepsake .
P: It's a~heirloom .
B: It 's a tow sack with a big I ndian picture on it. And they
use those as saddle blanket between the saddle and the hors e .
LIttle cushion.
M:I remember another thing you did • . you were taking pictures.
This was supposed t o be, I expect, a POlaroid .
P: A prede~e5sor to the now famous Land camera !
M: What d i d you use for fuel? You didn't have.electricity. c.b:o.t-ter;.~
B: The professor has a candle; his batteries are a book of
matches. He lights t he candle and takes a portrait by candle­light
•.
P: It ' s a portrait by candle light . IT has a soft glow to it.
I expect the inventor of the Polaroid, Dr. Land , got his idea
from it.
B: EAst Texas Polaroid.
P : I guess he saw some of my negatives and thought there was
r oom for improvement in the likeness of people it takes.
6 .
Yamboree
M: Now this picture .. you pu l l this out of the camera . . and it ' s
the rear end of a horse . You g i ve a copy to people?
P: Oh yes . Suitable for framing. And it ' s suitable for sending
to their mot hers-in-law , too .
M: Does anybody get mad ?
B:P: Oh n6!
I
P : And usua lly the wives wi ll say, "Well, it's certainly a perfect
l ikeness . Looks just like you ."
M:The possum oil ; you had me fooled on that one . That deal you
go into abou t t he possum oi l. YOu do that very well!
B: Possum oil. We ' ve extr acted a hand lotion from it and we
put it on the ladies' hand and caution them not to get it too
near the ring or the watch. (laughter) There ' s nothi ng deleteri ous
at al l about the hand lotion but we l i ke to see them jump when
we tell them that . In addition to i t not being a very good
hand l otion , it d~ have mysti cal powers. The Professor
performs his magic chamber with his scar fs by using mystica l
powers of the possum oi l.
M: I don't r emember t hat .
B: That ' s a magic chamber that we use . It's a real l arge ,
brown . . . i t ' s actually paper and was presented to us by the
INternational Paper Company. Actually it ' s a great big
shopping sack. It has magic words imprinted on it. We take
two scarves. We take a white scarf that's white on both sides
and a black scarf , black on both sides. We put the scarves in
the magic chamber, fold it up , put a drop of the mystical
possum oil on the front and one drop on the back and we take
3 big circles , one , two, and three . And this is a great
Yamboree
B: mystery. And when we ' ve opened it, .• in the meantime, the
mystic magic possum oil has made the colors transpose to each
other. The black scarf inside the chamber turned white and
the white scarf turned black. Yes, it's amazin'.
P: And people give us a big applause.
M: Getting back to this magic possum oil. I can't remember .. do
you tell people how you extract the oil?
P: It ' s a secret process.
B: The Professor used to tell about the possum oil ear ache
medicine . HIs old ancestors. He has an old time medical
spoon that is bent more like a little funnel to where it
brings down to a point at the end . And the old timers, mother
and dad, grannie grim, used to sit in front of the old wood­burning
fireplace. And this oil was always kept in a 4 dot;
a square snuff box, always had dots on the bottom. And they
would always use the 4 dot.
P: 4 dot snuff bottle.
B: Because it had more •.. they were considered •. you'd pick up
the square bottle and look at it and it will have 1,2,3~ dots
and 4 was alwys considered a medical bottle. The y ' d keep it
about half full of possum oil. And they ' d get it at the
killing season and strain it through a second-year used
cotton sack. In other words, the canvas , second year/was so
smooth it made a good filter. And then they would take the
possum oil, pour it onto the spoon, and warm it over the open
fire . And the little kid would come in and put his head on the
knee and they ' d drop four,five little drops of possum oil
down the ear that had the ear ache .. a real bad ear ache.
7 .
8 .
Yamboree
B: In about 30 minutes, the little kid would get to smelling
so much l i ke a possum , he' d always forget about the ear ache
it would cure him in 30 minu te s every time .
M: The thing about you two is you start off so darn se rious
you begin to absolutely believe what you 're saying . Then you have
this crash . ~
B: I'm glad you brought it~ because Dr. POtte r and I have
worr ied about this , too . Actually we have told this now 11 years
and we .. The other day we were talking about it and we 're be-b~
nning to believe about half of it ourselves.
M: I can see how you wou l d . It makes a who le l ot of sense.
We all had hot some kind of oil put in our ears.
M:In parenthesis I should put that possum oi l is glycerine.
Right?
B: Yes .
P: We generally preface tha t the possum oil we have extrac t ed
is glycerine from the possum oil .
M:You are quoted here saying ," It is coloUess, tasteless!
odorless and completely use les s ."
P: Therefore we will probably market it.
M: Ar e the r e any other t ricks tha t you do ?YOu do the photo -
graph , you do t he shell game deal, you do the oi l, you do the
scarves in the brown sack.
B:We go through the possum ferti lize r. The ger anium experi ment .
P : I have ther~ons tituted , reCYCled , homogenized possum
fe rtilizer that I show. Then we have demonstrators of the
ge raniums . These are not actual geraniums but we demon­strate
at the zero time prior t o the app lication otthis
fe rt i li zer. The ge ranium is in a l ittle 4 inch pot and is
9 .
Yamboree
high nitrogen
P: in perfect s i ze. Then i n 4 weeks of app l y i ng thisAfert-ilizer,
we extract anot her pot . I hold t he pot up a nd the
geranium has remained absolute l y i dentical but the pot has
grown to 4 times its original size . So we are espous ing a very
strong fertilizer if they wil l just get the possum guano .
B:A l ot of peop l e , even though they see it, find it hard to
be lieve .
This year we ' ve b rought the p l ans and they 're producing it.
the nati onal stove wor ks • . they 're building an o l d-timey, it's
a wood cook stove . It 's bui lt out of white pine and you us ua lly
cook just one meal on it . . It usua lly burns up with the fire .
P : You use a wood frying pan .
B: Someof them usually have a wood frying pan it will just
cook one meal.
M: You ' ve got that with you this time?
P: Oh yes . We have the p l ans. Yes , we want you t o have one of
the .. It' s actual l y an ad. They ' re worth $39.95 and cost every
penny of i t .
M: Let 's ge t on t o the r ec i pe s. These are the t wo I have. ARe
these the ones you ' re still doing?
P : Possum on the h a lf shell and the ~ossum tr~l­M:
Te ll about the ~ossum treQt
P: We ll, you get about a 5 , 6 pound possum , clean it good and
get most of the~t~s sue o f f of the carcass. Then you parboil it
a nd you get about 6 East Texas y ams a nd you cut the m l engthwise.
The n get half , three quarter c up of good syrup, r i bbon cane ,
East Texas ribbon cane and you bring it to a boil . Boil it
about 4 , 5 minutes , turn it off .. just keep it on warm.Then you ~~t
Yamboree 10.
P: a white oak board .. t hat 's what most of ' em use .. and it's
usually an inch thick and 12 by 18 inches in l e ngth. You put
the possum in the c e nter and you surround it by the yams .
M: Have the yams been baked?
P: The yams have been pa~boiled. Possum has been parbo iled
as we ll. To finish it and get t he sweet syrupy t aste, you
pour some of the syrup on it , put it in a 250 degree oven
a nd cook i t for a bout 2 hours . About every 30 minutes , bas t eit
with t he r i bbon cane syrup .. on the possum and the yams . And
at the end of 2 or 2~ hours, you remove it f rom the oven
and go to the near est garbage can and scrape off t he possum
and the yams into the can a nd then you eat the board.It' s
a de l ightfu l flavor.
M: You know that really kill s me because it sounds awfu l ly
good. ( l aughter) That ' s what you would cal l planked possum .
Now you ' ve got possum on the half s he ll.
P : That goes through al l the de tails of how you clean the
she ll.
M: But you start with a r madi llo.
P : Sure . Possums just on t he hi ll from our house just the
othe r day .. remember that armadill o ? Possums are chasing t hem
and ki lling them.
B: The pos s ums are mad about the armadillo be ing espoused as
the state animal. The dillos have migrated here from out
west and we in East Texas t ake g r eat offe ns e .
P : We are liable to secede .
M: I c an see that.
P: POssum is an ind i genous creature t o our area and armadillos
Yamboree
P:are not; they're tansients. Theive come in here and taken
their jobs. From Arizona., New Mexico, the dirty states.
M: And you say the possums are taking after them.
B: Not only that but the possums don't do any damage to your
flower beds and the armadillos dig 'em all up. They're
turrible creatures.
11.
P:Possums are not dumb. They just look dumb.
M: O.K. You ha~e to do the armadillo shell.
P: You get rid of the armadillo and you can use the shell for
serving.
M: You've got the armadillo shell all cleaned out. Then what
do you do •• you rub the shell with what?
B: Well actually, you rub the shell with any number of sol­utions
that we have up there. We use possum oil and then this
other one ..
P: Shellac.
B: That's when they're going to make the purses'
P: Hackberry oil or something Mrs. Green was telling us
about.I know what you're talking about; it's a type of berry
B: It's not a farkle berry?
P: Farkle berry. You look in your Institute of Texan Culture
lexicon and you will find that farkle berries are indeed a
berry in East Texas.
M: Are you serious?
B: NO,we are absolutely dead serious.
P: No, we're not f~lling your teeth. Has a very nice farkle
flower prior to its berry.
you\-e going to have to come up and visit us sometime.
12.
Yamboree
M: We've got the armadillo shell already now and then ..
rub the shell with possum oil and then what do you put around
t he edge?
B: You put yams. You boil the yams and you put a little vanilla
f lavoring and butter and stir ' em up , cream 'em • • like mashed
potatoes. And then you line the outer edge with marshma llows
and~~ou bake that it t oasts the marshmallows. The possum is
in the c e nter. It's a lovely, lovely dish !
M: Have you ever eaten possum?
B: Oh yes.
M: Honestnow? Cross your heart and hope to die?
What does it taste like? Pork?
P: If you didn't know what you were eating, you ' d think you
were eating ham or pork . Especia lly pork.
M: Very stringy?
B: They still eat them in East Texas. A lot of trappers go
out and trap and sell them for fur and a lot of people saY,"I
want a carcass. " A lot of 'em in East Texas, Lufkin, Nacogdoches.
P: We recommend, and most of them do ,catch them live and feed
them out a little bit because they are a scavenging type of
animal; a nocturnal animal. So it's very much recommended that
you catch them live and feed them on table scraps about two
weeks. Change the body chemistry.
M: You've got this recipe , tree decorated with fresh per-simmons.
B: That's for the Christmas season; the holiday season ..
P: Possums and persimmons have a great affinity, one for the
other .
Yamboree
M: The Parks and Wildlife puts out a picture of a possum
P: hanging out of a pers i mmon t r ee .
M: And e ating persimmons .
B: I would hang by my tail, too, to eat a persimmon .
M:OUrs are so ra tty , I can 't imagine a nyone wanting to eat
one.
P : They've got hands and fee t just like us. Four fingers
and a thumb . I have t wo pos sums a t home now, two of the
h~brid pos sums , and one of them .. I took some left ove r food
13.
from the Country c l ub home and there were two, three doughnuts
left and the next day I went up there •.• and this is true •.
this possum was l eaning up on the corner of his pen there and
had thi s doughnut in his hand and every o nce in a while he'd lift
a hand up, t ake a bite o f the doughnut. The cutest thing. I
wish I'd had a picture o t it.
Of course t hey have a prehensi l e tail. They can support
themselves with that tail, either bottom side down or right
side up .. That l eaves the front hands free .
P: Back home we have in our nat i ve woods, the native
mus cadine bu t we have a little grape ca lled possum grape.
And they make possum grape je l ly. De licious.
M: On this sheet, you get serious and you really give the
recipe for the yam p i e.
P: Yes/and that 's l ike t hey s erve he r e.
M: And peop l e love it, don 't they?
Mr. BAird has g i ven me a lot of publicity t hat you two
have gotten.
B: Caleb Purt l e interviewed us he r e for about 2 days l as t
Yamboree 14.
B: year. As a result this articl~ Potentate's Possumology ,
That was a direct result of CAleb Purtle 's interview right her~
on the grounds.
M: Now this one is marked Sarah Green.
P: That was from the Gilmer MIrror last year.
M: This will go in with your file.
B: Gilmer .. named after an admiral.
M: SArah Green. This is an article about the lOth anniver-sary
of the Folklife Festival and Upshur county's de legation •.
some 2 dozen strong, etc ..•. quotes •. . etc. will be in file.
Discussion of publicity articles. which see.
M: Do you do this5ame kind of fun and nonsense when somebody
interviews you?
B/P: You bet.
B: Dr . P~tter and I had the honor of presenting the award to
the governor .. Pete Dupont,of Delaware.
M: When did you do this?
B: He was nice. He wrote us a lovely l etter. SAid he wanted
to serve it sometime in DE laware for an occasion that would
be equ al to the food •. '--'
B: The little College Superbowl was held in Longview at
the new high school stadium. It had to be in )76 or ~7. Right
after they built this new stadium. Small colleges. They had
the state of Dela ware and the state of Illinois.
M: That's how you hooked up with him?
B: Dupont came to the thing and we made him a degree; awar ded
it to him and he was very gracious.
M: More clippings . \~here does it t e ll about P M magazine??
15.
Yamboree
More discussion of clippings. Possibility of being on Hee Haw.
M: I 'm surprised you men have time to take care o f your business.
of
You are just a del ight , the two~you . Everybody knows you
and everybody just lov~you fO pieces; you're just part of the
family . THat ' s one of the nice things about the Folklife
Festival ... we al l feel so good about each other.
WE got to talking last year and I want it on this tape :
The first year of Folklife the ~ilmer peopl e had someone wo rking
with a fro~ }making shingles for log cabins. Tell me about a
froe,
P: A froeis the draw kn~fe that you use to chop what they
used to call boards. They are literally shingles. But you take
a nice oak stump or a piece of good oak .. and incidentally we
have b r ought good o l d East Texas oak down here for ' em torake
boards.
B: Dean Lumber Company.
P : Always arranges to bY'ing the choice
M: I s that what they are doing over by the log cabin?
P:The shingles that have made the roof. They have got a young
man now that does it. The original man, old Mr. Keel, who was
a carpenter at home and his two sons, Eulan and El an , t win
~p
boys, both carpenters. Mr . Keel came down in here1h~was in
his 80 ' s and he wanted to visit some of his kin folks. He
star ted the demonstrati on. The~is g r andson came with him the
next year . And ultimat ely he just kind of phased out.
M: Originally did they do it where you are now?
P: Originally we were up at the corner •• right adjacent to
the log cabin , and Mr. Kee l worked with us and we had the
opossum show and the yam pies r i ght up at that end .
Yamboree
B: They started the log cabin the very first Festival and
they kept working on it.
M: Something sticks in my mind about the history of Upshur
County. You mentioned the ~mons coming through there.
P: There's an o ld settlement called Kelsey. We have a
Mormon with us, Ted Austin. Very, very devout MOrmons. Lovely
people. Hard workers. A large church in Gilmer.
M: Is t here still a Kelsey , Texas?
B: Oh yes.
M: And is that MOrmon?
P : Very much so.
M: In other words they were treki ng west and s~t down there.
Is that right?
P:They put what they call a stake there. It was the largest
in Texas fo r many , many years.
16.
B: Now Longview has got a stake .. a new area •• and they're deve lop­ing
other areas.
M: Did some of them move on, I wonder?
B: Onsure.
P: Each year they move .. part of their be lief is to serve in
the Templ~ you know, in Salt Lake Cit~ and there's a tremend­ous
migration back and forth to Salt Lake City from Gilmer and
the Kelsey area.INdustrious, proud , people.They're dairy
people and incidentally our county has become about the~th or
7th in the state of Texas for Outch dairy herding . And I'm sure
80 % of them are these Mormon folks.
M: I love the name Upshur. Where did that come from?
P: IT's named for Abel Upshur . He was a Co~g r ess~an
I
/
. We do
Yamboree
P: have a new Upshur symbol .
M: Is the r e a nything e lse should be on this tape before you
vanish?
B: I think we ' ve got it. If you can come by and enjoy a pie
and a little visit, we ' d love for you to meet Ted and Jeanine
Austin . I know they would d e light in talking to you. MOrmon
people , rea lly nice .
M: God bless you . You are the grea t est!
END OF TAPE I, side 1, 45 minutes
17.